Amherst College French for 2013-14

101 Elementary French

This course features intensive work on French grammar, with emphasis on the acquisition of basic active skills (speaking, reading, writing and vocabulary building). We will be using the multimedia program French in Action which employs only authentic French, allowing students to use the language colloquially and creatively in a short amount of time. Three hours a week for explanation and demonstration, plus small sections with French assistants. This course prepares students for FREN 103. For students without previous training in French.

103 Intermediate French

Intensive review and coverage of all basic French grammar points with emphasis on the understanding of structural and functional aspects of the language and acquisition of the basic active skills (speaking, reading, writing and systematic vocabulary building). We will be using French in Action, the multimedia program. Three hours a week for explanation and demonstration, plus small sections with French assistants. This course prepares students for FREN 205.

Requisite: FREN 101 or two years of secondary school French. Fall semester Lecturer Tapley and Assistants. Spring semester: Senior Lecturer Uhden and Assistants.

205 Language and Literature

An introduction to the critical reading of French literary and non-literary texts; a review of French grammar; training in composition, conversation and listening comprehension. Texts will be drawn from significant short stories, poetry and films. The survey of different literary genres serves also to contrast several views of French culture. Successful completion of FREN 205 prepares students for FREN 207, 208, 311 or 312. Conducted in French. Three hours a week.

Requisite: FREN 103 or three to four years of secondary school French. Fall semester: Professor Rockwell and Visiting Lecturer Baillargeon. Spring semester: Professor Uhden.

207 Introduction to French Literature and Culture

Through class discussion, debates, and frequent short papers, students develop effective skills in self-expression, analysis, and interpretation. Literary texts, articles on current events, and films are studied within the context of the changing structures of French society and France’s complex relationship to its recent past. Assignments include both creative and analytic approaches to writing. Some grammar review as necessary, as well as work on understanding spoken French using video materials. Highly recommended for students planning to study abroad.

Requisite: FREN 205, or completion of AP French, or four years of secondary school French in a strong program. Fall semester: Professors Uhden and Katsaros. Spring semester: Professors Caplan and Rockwell.

208 French Conversation

To gain as much confidence as possible in idiomatic French, we discuss French social institutions and culture, trying to appreciate differences between French and American viewpoints. Our conversational exchanges will touch upon such topics as French education, art and architecture, the status of women, the spectrum of political parties, minority groups, religion, and the position of France and French-speaking countries in the world. Supplementary work with audio and video materials.

Requisite: FREN 205, or completion of AP French, or four years of secondary school French in a strong program. Limited to 16 students. Spring semester. Professor Hewitt.

311 Cultural History of France: From the Middle Ages to the Revolution

Between the year 1000 and the Revolution of 1789 France made some of the greatest and most enduring contributions to European literature, music, visual art, politics, and intellectual life. We shall examine some of the most significant aspects of French civilization during this period: from the spiritual power of Romanesque and Gothic art to the vibrancy of Renaissance humanism (Rabelais and Montaigne), and from the grandeur of classicism and the baroque (Descartes, Pascal, Molière) to the elegance and refinement of the rococo, as well as the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Diderot) and sentimental reactions to it. We shall discuss “courtly love,” the châteaux of the Loire, court society, the emergence of absolute monarchy (Versailles), theater, opera, and the status of women. Conducted in French.

314 From Astérix to Houellebecq: Translating Contemporary French

This course aims at improving the students' knowledge of the contemporary French language and of contemporary French society through translation. We will draw from a wide variety of sources, such as fiction, poetry, film, songs, press articles, graphic novels and advertising, to gain a better understanding of idiomatic French and of the translation process. Conducted in French.

320 Literary Masks of the Late French Middle Ages

The rise in the rate of literacy which characterized the early French Middle Ages coincided with radical reappraisals of the nature and function of reading and poetic production. This course will investigate the ramifications of these reappraisals for the literature of the late French Middle Ages. Readings may include such major works as Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart, the anonymous Roman de Renart, the Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris, selections from the continuation of the Roman de la Rose by Jean de Meun, anonymous Fabliaux, and poetic works by Christine de Pisan, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Charles d’Orléans. Particular attention will be paid to the philosophical presuppositions surrounding the production of erotic allegorical discourse. We shall also address such topics as the relationships between lyric and narrative and among disguise, death and aging in the context of medieval discourses on love. All texts will be read in modern French. Conducted in French.

324 Studies in Medieval Romance Literature and Culture

The study of a major author, literary problem, or question from the medieval period with a particular focus announced each time the course is offered. The topic for spring 2014 is: "The Allegorical Impulse." We will study the social, philosophical, poetic and institutional currents that contribute to the emergence of allegorical texts in the period between the twelfth and the late-fourteenth centuries. Readings include the Quest for the Holy Grail and works by Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung, Dante Alighieri, and Marie de France. All readings will be done in English translation. Conducted in English.

327 Humanism and the Renaissance

Humanists came to distrust medieval institutions and models. Through an analysis of the most influential works of the French Renaissance, we shall study the variety of literary innovations which grew out of that distrust with an eye to their social and philosophical underpinnings. We shall address topics relevant to these innovations such as Neoplatonism, the grotesque, notions of the body, love, beauty, order and disorder. Readings will be drawn from the works of such major writers as: Erasmus, Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, Montaigne, Ronsard, Du Bellay, Maurice Scève and Louise Labé. The most difficult texts will be read in modern French. Conducted in French.

330 The Doing and Undoing of Genres in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

This course explores the formation and transformation of various genres in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, with a particular focus announced each time the course is offered. The topic for 2012-13 is: "The Eighteenth-Century Novel and Theater in France." Readings will include texts by Diderot, Voltaire, Marivaux, Prévost, Laclos, and Beaumarchais. Conducted in French.

337 The French Enlightenment

An analysis of the major philosophical, literary, and artistic movements in France between the years 1715 and 1789 within the context of their uneasy relationship to the social, political, and religious institutions of the ancien régime. Readings will include texts by Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and others. To gain a better sense of what it might have been like to live in eighteenth-century France, we will also read essays in French cultural history. Conducted in French.

342 Women of Ill Repute: Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century French Literature

Prostitutes play a central role in nineteenth-century French fiction, especially of the realistic and naturalistic kind. Both widely available and largely visible in nineteenth-century France, prostitutes inspired many negative stereotypes. But, as the very product of the culture that marginalized her, the prostitute offered an ideal vehicle for writers to criticize the hypocrisy of bourgeois mores. The socially stratified world of prostitutes, ranging from low-ranking sex workers to high-class courtesans, presents a fascinating microcosm of French society as a whole. We will read selections from Honoré de Balzac, Splendeur et misère des courtisanes; Victor Hugo, Les Misérables; and Gustave Flaubert, L’éducation sentimentale; as well as Boule-de-Suif and other stories by Guy de Maupassant; La fille Elisa by Edmond de Goncourt; Nana by Emile Zola; Marthe by Joris-Karl Huysmans; La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils; and extracts from Du côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust. Additional readings will be drawn from the fields of history (Alain Corbin, Michelle Perrot) and critical theory (Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva). We will also discuss visual representations of prostitutes in nineteenth-century French art (Gavarni, Daumier, C. Guys, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec). Conducted in French.

346 Enfants Terribles: Childhood in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Culture

Images of childhood have become omnipresent in our culture. We fetishize childhood as an idyllic time, preserved from the difficulties and compromises of adult life; but the notion that children’s individual lives are worth recording is a relatively modern one. Drawing from literature, children's literature, anthropology, philosophy, art, and film, we will try to map out the journey from the idea of childhood as a phase to be outgrown to the modern conception of childhood as a crucial moment of self-definition. We will pay particular attention to the issues of nature vs. nurture through the example of the "wild child" Victor, to nineteenth-century theories of child-rearing, and to the symbolic importance of children in avant-garde art.

Readings will include selections from J.J. Rousseau; Victor de l'Aveyron by J. Itard; selected poems and prose by Baudelaire; Les Malheurs de Sophie by the Comtesse de Ségur; selected stories by Guy de Maupassant; selected poems by Arthur Rimbaud; Jules Vallès, L'Enfant; and the Surrealist play Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir by Roger Vitrac. We will look at nineteenth-century artists' visions of childhood, with a particular emphasis on female artists such as Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and Berthe Morisot. We will also discuss films by Clement, Truffaut, Bresson, and Jeunet, among others. Conducted in French.

351 France's Identity Wars

This course studies the shifting notions about what constitutes “Frenchness” and reviews the heated debates about the split between French citizenship and French identity. Issues of decolonization, immigration, foreign influence, and ethnic background will be addressed as we explore France’s struggles to understand the changing nature of its social, cultural, and political identities. We will study theoretical and historical works, as well as novels, plays and films. Conducted in French.

353 Literature in French Outside Europe: Introduction to Francophone Studies

This course will explore cross-cultural intersections and issues of identity and alienation in the works of leading writers from the French-speaking Caribbean and West Africa. Our discussions will focus on the sociopolitical positions and narrative strategies entertained in key texts of postcolonial literature (both fiction and critical essays). Issues involving nationalism, race, gender, assimilation and multilingualism will help to shape our discussion of how postcolonial subjects share in or distinguish themselves from certain tenets of Western thought. At issue, then, is the way French Caribbean and West African literatures and cultures trace their own distinctiveness and value. Conducted in French.

354 War and Memory

(Offered as FREN 354 and EUST 354.) Through readings of short fiction, historical essays, drama and films, we study how the French have tried to come to terms with their role in World War II, both as individuals and as a nation. We will explore the various myths concerning French heroism and guilt, as well as the challenges to those myths, with particular attention paid to the way wartime memories have become a lightning rod for debate and discord in contemporary French culture and politics. No prior knowledge of the historical period of the war is necessary, but students of French history are welcome. Conducted in French.

360 Masterpieces of French Literature in Translation

A study of great works of French literature. Readings may include: selections from Montaigne’s Essays and Pascal’s Pensées; Molière, Tartuffe and The Misanthrope; Voltaire, Candide; Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons; Stendhal, The Red and the Black; Balzac, Old Goriot; Flaubert, Madame Bovary; and Proust, Swann in Love. Conducted in English.

361 European Film

A study of some of the greatest French New Wave (1959-1963) films, as well as earlier French films that influenced the New Wave. From the New Wave we shall view Truffaut’s The 400 Blows; Godard’s Breathless, My Life to Live, and Contempt; Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad by Resnais. We shall also study Zero for Conduct (1933) and L’Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo; Boudu Saved From the Waters (1932) Grand Illusion (1937), and The Rules of the Game (1939) by Jean Renoir; Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur (1956) and A Man Escaped (1956) by Robert Bresson. No previous training in film analysis is required. Conducted in English.

364 Birth of the Avant-Garde: Modern Poetry and Culture in France and Russia, 1870-1930

(Offered as EUST 311, FREN 364, and RUSS 311.) Between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, poetry was revolutionized both in France and in Russia; nowhere else did the avant-garde proliferate more extravagantly. This class will focus on the key period in the emergence of literary modernity that began with Symbolism and culminated with Surrealism and Constructivism.With the advent of modernism, the poem became a “global phenomenon” that circulated among different languages and different cultures, part of a process of cross-fertilization. An increasingly hybrid genre, avant-garde poetry went beyond its own boundaries by drawing into itself prose writing, philosophy, music, and the visual and performing arts. The relation between the artistic and the literary avant-garde will be an essential concern.We will be reading Baudelaire, Rimbaud and the French Symbolists; the Russian Symbolists (Blok, Bely); Nietzsche; Apollinaire, Dada, and the Surrealists (Breton, Eluard, Desnos); and the Russian avant-garde poets (Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Tsvetaeva).Our study of the arts will include Symbolism (Moreau, Redon); Fauvism (Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck); Cubism, Dada, and early Surrealism (Duchamp, Ernst, Dali, Artaud); the “World of Art” movement (Bakst, the Ballets Russes); Primitivism (Goncharova, Larionov); Suprematism (Malevich); and Constructivism (Tatlin, Rodchenko, El Lissitzky). The course will be taught in English. Students who read fluently in French and/or Russian will be encouraged to read the material in the original language.